popular Duke of Devonshire and Lord Hartington occasionally visit and administer the estate in a very different spirit from Ralegh's, is not, except in its foundation stones, the castle of the fifteenth century. Kilcolman Castle is a roofless ivyclad ruin on the well-managed property of a descendant of the Barrys with whom Ralegh fought; but no alders can now be seen on the banks of the Mulla. The only house in which he lived that has survived the burnings, reprisals, and destructive raids that swept away so many buildings in Ireland, is the Warden's house of the College of Youghal, to which he took a fancy because of its resemblance to the old manorhouse at East Budleigh where he was born. When Mr. Crofton Croker sixty years ago visited Youghal, he thus described it :—

The house of the ill-fated Sir Walter Ralegh, who was mayor of the town in 1588, is still to be seen nearly in the same state as when inhabited by him; and many objects are pointed out to which the charm of traditional anecdote is attached. It is long and low, the exterior plain and heavy, resembling the common English manorhouse of his time. In the interior those rooms which we saw were completely lined with small oaken panels, and had large wooden chimney-pieces, embellished with very beautiful carved work.

Thomas Dyneley, in Charles the Second's reign, notices the well wrought ancient chimney pieces' and the 'extrem pleasant garden.' But the most accurate description of Ralegh's house is that published in 1852 by the Rev. Samuel Hayman, the historiographer of Youghal. He speaks of the solid mementos of the fifteenth century, the walls five feet thick, the deep projecting bay window and porch, the orieled closet, the high-pointed gables and gablets, and the great towering chimneys.

A large dining-room (he says) is on the ground floor, from which is a subterranean passage connecting the house with the old tower of St. Mary's Church. In one of the kitchens the ancient wide arched fireplace remains. The walls are in great part wainscoted with Irish oak. The drawing-room-Sir Walter's studyretains most of its ancient beauty in the preservation of its fine dark wainscot, deep projecting windows, and richly carved oak mantelpiece rising in the full pride of Elizabethan style to the height of the ceiling. The cornice rests upon three figures, representing Faith, Hope, and Charity, between which are enriched circular-headed panels, and a variety of emblematical devices fill up the rest of the structure. In the adjoining bedroom is another mantelpiece of oak, barbarously painted over. The Dutch tiles of the fireplace are about four inches square, with various devices inscribed in a circular border. Behind the wainscoting of this room, a recess was a few years ago revealed in which a part of the old monkish library, hidden at the period of the Reformation, was discovered.

Some of the books Mr. Hayman describes may have been gifts to the Warden from James, the ninth Earl, and Maurice, the tenth Earl of Desmond, both of whom supported and enriched the educational foundation of their great ancestor, the good Earl Thomas. But one of the fifteenth-century volumes, Peter Comestor's Historia Scolastica, is quoted by Sir Walter Ralegh in the second book of the first part of his History of the World. In the same recess was also found a

black-letter volume, printed at Mantua in 1479, of Scriptural events in the history of the world from the Creation to the days of the Apostles. The elder Disraeli has argued that Ralegh could not have written the whole of his erudite folio himself, because he had not the books of reference in the Tower of London. But the discovery of one of the first editions of Comestor, and the black-letter epitome of early historical events, in the little recess in his Youghal bedroom, may indicate the possibility that Ralegh had been taking notes from the remnant of the Desmond library for the opus magnum during his frequent Irish exiles.

In appearance, what manner of man was Ralegh when in Ireland? There was much change, of course, from the dashing captain of eightand-twenty, when he was putting the unarmed men to the sword and hanging the women in Dingle Bay, to the admiral of sixty-five, who, between the Tower and the scaffold, visited his old haunts in the county of Cork for the last time in the three summer months of 1617. But all accounts agree in giving him a commanding presence, a handsome and well-compacted figure, a forehead rather too high ; the lower part of his face, though partly hidden by the moustache and peaked beard, showing rare resolution. His portrait, a life-sized head, painted when he was mayor of Youghal, was recently presented to the owner of his house, where it had been years ago, by the senior member for the county of Waterford; and another original picture of him when in Ireland is in the possession of the Rev. Pierce W. Drew of Youghal. Both these Irish pictures show the same lofty brow and firm lips. There is an old and much-prized engraving by Vander Werff of Amsterdam that seems to combine all his characteristic features-the extraordinarily high forehead, the intelligent eyes, the same large but well-shaped nose, the moustache and peaked beard, ill concealing a too determined mouth. The likeness is most striking. But there are accessories in this famous engraving that seem to identify it, even more than the mere resemblance of the features, with Ralegh's career in Ireland. The knightly personage in armour is shrouded in the skin of a wolf; the wolf's head shows its sharp fangs at the top of the picture; two human skulls are beneath, the eyeless sockets of one being directed upwards to the portrait, with an expression, as far as a poor skull can have expression, of reproach and woe. Both skulls rest on the torch and sword, the dagger of the assassin and the halter. Surely that must be Ralegh? Looking closer, however, it is found to be but the picture of one of his contemporaries and rivals in glory, Ferdinand of Toledo, the Duke of Alva.

The best summary of Ralegh's career in Ireland is to be found in the brilliant little History of Cork by my friend Mr. John George McCarthy, ex-member for Mallow: 10

10 McCarthy's History of Cork, eighth edition, p. 30.

Sir Walter (says the local historian) lived in the suburb which we now call Tivoli, where cedars planted by him still stand. From Cork he wrote those wonderful letters in which he, a brilliant cavalier of eight-and-twenty, seeks, with quaint felicity of style, to persuade Queen Elizabeth, then a maiden of seventy, that he was madly in love with her. Cork was his headquarters in a long series of military services against the MacCarthys, the Desmonds, the Roches, and the Barrys. Some of these services were notable for knightly valour, others for unknightly wiles. Thus at Midleton, then called Chore Abbey, close to where the distillery now stands, he, single-handed, confronted Fitzgerald, seneschal of Immokilly, with a host, and held the fort until his companions came up. Thus at Castletown he disguised himself as a benighted traveller, sought admission to Lord Roche's Castle, was hospitably received, and, when supper was over, announced to his host and Lady Roche that they were his prisoners, that their castle was surrounded by his troops, and that they should forthwith go to Cork gaol. By such quaint love-making and such daring exploits he obtained a royal grant of thirty-six thousand acres of the forfeited Desmond estates. He went to reside at Youghal, and there, in a spot still indicated, grew the first of all Irish potatoes. But a quiet country life did not suit so brilliant an adventurer. He left Ireland, sailed for America, discovered Virginia, stormed Guiana, and bore home to England the splendid spoil of many a Spanish galleon. He soon afterwards fell into disgrace, and was imprisoned for ten years in the Tower of London. There he wrote his famous History of the World. He came back to Cork a ruined man, sold the vast Desmond estates for one thousand crowns, and sailed from under the walls of Dundanion Castle on his last desperate adventure to seek an Eldorado in the Indies, whence he returned 'broken,' as he said, 'in brain and heart,' to die a traitor's death at Whitehall.

JOHN POPE HENNESSY.

SHEEP-HUNTING IN THE MOUNTAINS.

OVIS MONTANA, locally and variously called the mountain sheep, Bighorn, or Taye, is very closely allied to, if he is not identical with, Ovis Argali, the wild sheep of Asia, and he is akin to the European Mouflon. He stands about as high as a black-tail deer, but is much thicker and more massively made in the body and limbs than the latter animal. His head resembles that of a domestic sheep, but it is larger and more powerful-looking, and, in the case of the male, it is surmounted by a huge pair of curving horns far longer than those that adorn the head of any civilised ram. Among these animals this ornament is not confined to the male sex, for the females also carry small horns. The hair is coarse, very thick and close, resembling that of the deer in texture, but bluer in colour over the greater portion of his body, with a peculiar exception which makes him look as if he was in the habit of sitting down in the snow, and some stuck to him. He is a grand and noble-looking animal, viewed standing motionless on some jutting crag, or bounding with gigantic springs down a precipice that apparently could not afford a foot-hold to any living thing.

Some years ago I doubted the existence of the mountain sheep. I classed him with the Gorgons, dragons, and unicorns. I had read about him in books, but in all my wanderings I had never seen one, not even a stuffed specimen except in the British Museum, and I had some doubts as to whether they were genuine, or had been got up after the manner of Barnum's mermaid; neither had I come across any reliable man who had killed one. My doubts were, however, at length dispelled. One day, while hunting on the plains, the government scout of a neighbouring post told me he was certain that there were big-horns on a certain range of bluffs in Wyoming. I did not believe him in the least, but as a large party of us, including some soldiers, were going through from a post on the railway to one of the forts situated in that territory, and as we should have to pass through the bluffs, we determined to spend a few days there and to prospect for sheep. This same government scout was a considerable villain, and got us into a nice mess. I don't know why it was, but the inhabitants of the city' in the neighbourhood of the fort from which we had been hunting took it into their wise heads that neither my friend P.

6

nor myself were likely ever to revisit that region, and that therefore it was expedient to pillage, squeeze, and skin us completely before we got away. They laid their plans pretty well. The scout arranged with a worthy citizen from whom we had hired some horses that at the last moment he should put in a most exorbitant claim for damage done to his horses. Accordingly, after the ambulance that had conveyed us to the station had returned to the fort, and while we were waiting quietly at the hotel for the train, it being then about eleven o'clock at night, we were politely but firmly requested to pay a sum for damage done to the team, greatly exceeding the whole value of both horses and wagon put together, and, at the same moment, an attachment was placed upon our luggage. We were in a nice fix. We had to leave by that night's train, for there was but one train a day, and the party we were to join were impatiently waiting for us at S a station some distance down the line, and expected to leave the next day, the moment the train got in. Fortunately the cars were three or four hours late, which gave us time to do something. We got a buggy, drove off to the residence of an attorney, who was recommended to us by the hotel proprietor for his strict honesty, woke him up, turned him out of bed, narrated the circumstances, lugged him down to the station, paid the money into court, got the attachment off our luggage, and started triumphantly by the train. I never found out what became of our case, but I need scarcely say we never saw any of our money again. Where it went to I do not know; probably it went, in the words of the late Mr. James Fisk, where the woodbine twineth;' at any rate I am pretty sure that a very small proportion of it, if any, found its way into the pockets of the two conspirators-the scout and the owner of the horses.

On arriving at the little town of S- we found the party were not ready, and we were compelled to wait there some days, a period of inactivity which proved fatal to our scout. S was at that time inhabited by a great many cardsharpers and gentlemen of that and kindred persuasions, and a few railway employés. The small military post is situated some little distance outside the town. The day after our arrival a carpenter who had just completed a building contract somewhere, and who was overflowing with money and good-nature, came back to the town and proceeded to treat,' with the result that in a few hours the city was mad drunk, and remained so for a considerable time. P— and I dined that night at the barracks, and by the time we returned to the town the orgie was at its height. The men were simply wild, raving drunk, drunk with the vilest of whisky, and nobody knows how vile and how horrible in its consequences whisky can be until he has tasted a sample of the kind of stuff that is, or used to be, concocted at many of those little out-of-the-way frontier towns. They were yelling, laughing, roaring, fighting, exploding rifles and firing off revolvers promiscuously